Prevalence of hepatitis C virus in the Mexican population: a systematic review

Although hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is considered a relevant public health problem in Mexico, the prevalence is still under discussion. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review to explore the prevalence of HCV infection in the Mexican population.

A systematic review of studies reporting prevalence in Mexican population was performed using several free-access databases.

Sixty-eight works fulfilled the search criteria. From these, 44 studies involved asymptomatic subjects and 28 involved patients or high-risk subjects. Prevalence of blood donors (6,955,558 persons) ranged from 0.0% to 2.05%, with 7/32 studies reporting values >1%, whereas prevalence of non-donor asymptomatic subjects (28,528 persons) from 0.0% to 2.7%, with 7/11 studies reporting values >1%, and medical personnel from 0.0% to 2.08% (1,227 persons), with 4/11 studies reporting values >1%. Prevalence of patients with chronic hepatic disease ranged from 6.7% to 77%. The most prevalent genotype was 1 (30.0-87.5%), of which subtype 1b is the most frequent (11.9-61.9%). The main risk factors were blood transfusion and unprotected sex or having multiple sex partners.

The prevalence in the Mexican population seems to be in accordance with that previously estimated by the World Health Organization (1-2.5%).